Have a child and a man placed in the same angle with reference to the auditor and near to¬gether. If the man then speaks in the accents of a child without moving his lips or the muscles of his face in any way, the auditors will believe that the voice comes from the child. Even if the man is some distance away from the child the illusion will still be effective, if the latter accommodates its features and gestures to the words spoken by the former.

Were it not for this tendency to self-deception, there would be no such thing as ventriloquism, which the dictionary defines as being the art of making the voice appear to come from various points or distances, and not from the actual speaker. So far as it goes, the definition is a good one.

By a look or a gesture the ventriloquist leads his audience to expect a voice from a certain direction, then by speaking ventriloquially—that is, without moving his lips or jaws, with teeth closed or almost closed and lips only slightly parted, he tricks his auditors into believing that the voice heard actually proceeds from the point indicated. Of course unless his imitation of a distant voice is good; that is, unless in faintness, tone, body, etc., it seems to come from a distance, the effect will be imperfect, although it may still be decep-tive and therefore partly successful.

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